Didn’t get a chance to start this until Sunday and must confess that just kept whacking away at it piece by piece until I got the last couple out today. Always enjoy this setter and I put the fun factor well before any set in stone rules to play by !

He gives a mix of clever clueing with a couple of new snippets of information with each puzzle – how many of us knew the capital of Nicaragua and Mr Goldwater off the top of our heads – but both very gettable from the rest of the clue. He’s a master of the subtle theme and just gives good value for the time that it takes to get him finished.

Needed help with the parsing of SIGNS, WELKIN and SCALES (not familiar with Prunella by name but certainly remember Mrs Fawlty). Had tried to fit WELK (a large sea snail) into my version. Don’t think that I would have figured out the logic of SIGNS in another month !

Thoroughly enjoyed it !

I’m so glad I’m not Derek Lazenby.

27 across brought back a buried memory; I’d heard this one before (more or less) in an episode of “Waiting for God” (remember that show? Much repeated in the US, but forgotten over here). A quick google provided the relevant scene:

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0743315/quotes

As for the Ximenes vs not Ximenes arguments, I don’t really mind as long as it’s fun.

As far as the actual theme clue, which I never parsed, my entry was in the SW, where several non-themed clues (22, 26, 28) led to then confirmed the fairly easy CAPRI, and then on to GOT AT.

Derek @ 18, I am sorry for your plight, but Ximenes is only one preceptor of how these devious entertainments are supposed to work. Araucaria is most decidedly a libertarian – as I got used to him over a year or two ago, I noted that many answers could only be parsed (by me, at least) via a strange trip through a 5th or 6th dimension of meaning – but if I closed my eyes, they made sense.

That being said, the Grauniad is generally very friendly to libertarians from what I can see, rare it is indeed for an entire one of their puzzles to strictly follow X’s “rule”. And I think that is part of the appeal for both us and the setters.

Anyway, thanks so much for the blog, Gaufrid, and the various bloggers, for help parsing the pencilled-in theme word and MORALE; and to an extent, GOLDWATER – I still don’t really see how GOLD is “target for Sagittarius” (an archery thing?), but see preceding paragraph… and thanks Araucaria, of course, for one more gem!

And as has already been mentioned, set a crossword to appease the resident critics section here. Some of those who got the correct answer for the central theme could not work out why.

Had a quick look on line and decided this was a WOPI – waste of printer ink.

An Araucaria brightens my whole week. The man is a genius.

One for the hall of fame.

The way the theme was kept at an extra remove made it so much better than a regular themer.

@DL #18 – by “blatantly non-Ximenian” I presume you mean curly. Actually that was an essential part of the puzzle. Not good for the theme to fall too easily. As with many themers I bet most people came to that in reverse through the links and then had the wordplay to marvel at – I did.

A Quiptic-level solver quoting Ximenes is a dangerous mix. The cryptic world would be a better place if that wretched book had never been written.

B&J #19 have it right – “founder of the ‘modern’ cryptic”. Well, not alone, but the main influence – even to the setters who manage to squeeze humour and originality into the Ximenan framework.

19D had me stumped but the Guardianistas helped me out before this went up – many thanks anyway G for stepping in.